Home Defense: 9mm Semi-auto or 7.62x39mm AK-47?

hell, lets add a poll and hear your arguments for which one

 

00 buck, 12 gauge

 

NEITHER...

home defence. You want a round that will not over penetrate. You want a round that will stop a big intruder in his tracks. You want a firearm that is easily weilded. You want a firearm that is dependable without fail!

Remmington 870 express 18.5" short barrel, full stock. 12 gauge. Plain, simple dependable, cheap. Just racking it will cause most intruders to flee. No fear of shooting your neighbors accidentilly.

Use a large caliber handgun with low-power slug for a go-to gun. 38 special is fine. 9mm is too fast. 45 is ok.

Use handgun to go to the shotgun.

just my 2cents

 

that is true, and exactly the way to properly handle the situation. Agreed.

 

Really neither. I prefer a 12 gauge shot gun for @ least inside the home. Not to worry about the aim, just point & shoot & most likely will not penetrate the exterior walls & ruin the neighbors day as well.........................

 

glock 45

 

semi auto ... if you need an ak my guess is you either pissed off a mexican cartel or are shooting at the swat team

 

i have 12 gauge shotguns strewn all over my home. all of them are double barrels..either sxs or o/u's. fast to load and ready. i also seem to have shells all over the place too. i can move about loading and shooting with ease. my wife hates it.

i also have 9mm and on sat, will pick up a .45. the pistols are for really dire situations..like my wife and i are on the move, on the outside. i just need a good SOCOM 16 .308 rifle, and i can get to my safezone in the boonies.

for home stuff, i can see the police station from my house..i hope they get to me fast. i am setting up a defensive position and relying on a fast response..

 

9mm, simply b/c AK is ridiculous for home defense. Over penetrating, 'overkill' for one or 2 intruders, unwieldy (too long in confined quarters) and good luck explaining to a jury why you even have a "terrorist" gun

(yeah, I know it's not and you know it's not, but do you think your jury is going to be made of NRA members, or idiots swayed by the media?)

A 9mm isn't too overpowered at short distances. Theoretically the better frangible rounds will stop after some drywayll, but it's certainly possible to overpenetrate.

Even 00 will overpenetrate - I read somewhere that #4 buck was the 'best' compromise between stopping someone, and stopping at an indoor wall. Note, that's buck not bird shot.

 

Anything that will adequately penetrate a person will penetrate drywall.

Get something that will stop an intruder. #4 probably will not:

http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot3.htm

 

Also, if racking a slide scares away the BG, great! (It's always better not to have to shoot anyone, I hope I never have to.) Do not depend on it.

I know too many idiots that have unloaded shotguns in their homes that plan on racking the slide in the event of a breakin - if you didn't scare him away, he's now aware where you are and thinks you're armed when you're not, gj!

 

And this overpenetration crap is nonsense. You need to be SURE of your target and what's behind it, or haven't you read the four rules?

Don't trust that your ammo won't penetrate a wall, expect that it will and plan accordingly. If it's powerful enough to stop a BG, it's powerful enough to penetrate drywall, period.

 

what? you never miss? i watched a test on TV. even a 9mm went thru 2 interior walls and one exterior wall.

the only round that didnt was a .223. it went thru one interior wall, and splattered into another wall relatively harmlessly.

in a hot situation, i would probably miss. i would hate for it to hit a sleeping kid next door.

i am going for a shotgun. i dont own a .223.

 

well i am currently building an ar-15, so maybe i'll just stick with that. i thought the AK might be better

 

What? You shoot inappropriate rounds towards your kid's bedroom? I said "be sure of your target", not "be rambo". If your gun is pointed such that when you fire, nothing "killable" is immediately behind it within whatever its effective distance, overpenetration is not a problem.

In other words, get 00 buck, 9mm JHP, or .50BMG, whatever you can shoot comfortably. Just make sure that however it would be used in your HD situation, you wouldn't be shooting in a direction that would take somebody out.

If I shoot .50BMG in my living room in Montana, I can miss and hurt nobody. if I shoot 9mm downward in my apartment, I may well kill my neighbor downstairs.

My point, echoed by many gun experts, is: Don't try to find a bullet that won't penetrate drywall, it doesn't exist. Find something you can shoot accurately and comfortably, and make sure you plan it such that overpenetration is unlikely to kill people that live with or next to you.

For nitpickers: I of course meant a bullet that can reliably stop a bad guy and NOT penetrate drywall doesn't exist.

 

I guess being sure of your target won't help if you have a tendency to spazz uncontrollably and do 360's when you fire

 

X2000
An AK will kill through multiple layers of cinder block, inaccurately I might add.

 

I do agree a short-barrelled shotgun for most homes makes great sense. Relatively easy to point and control in a tense situation (though you do have to point it correctly, the spread isn't as wide as popularly believed).

OTOH, some of us live in apartments that have a couple of tiny rooms with tight turns where BG could easily snag a longer weapon, where handguns make sense.